


used to be

by VolxdoSioda



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 23:10:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16027931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolxdoSioda/pseuds/VolxdoSioda
Summary: It had meant to be a simple question. "Why doesn't Noctis take off his shirt even though he complains of the heat so much?"Turns out there's more than just a simple answer.





	used to be

**Author's Note:**

> Blaming Seito for this. We had a discussion on wounds and scars and Noctis' backstory, and this came out of it.

There's a reason that, for all of Gladio's taunting and teasing on the subject, Noctis never takes off his shirt, or wears anything that isn't a t-shirt or more. Why he'll sit there sweltering in the heat of Lestallum, complaining and muttering about how hot it is, rather than just taking Gladio's advice and losing the shirt. After all, they're all guys - there's hardly any shame in the matter. Plus, Lestallum has plenty of who the same thing on the muggier nights. 

It's been piquing Iris' curiosity for a while, truth be told. She's tried asking Prompto, but he'd just smiled at her and made an offhand remark to the effect of, "Ah, he just complains a lot. He doesn't actually mind the heat." 

She'd tried asking Ignis, but he'd just said, "Noct likes to whine a lot, but the heat doesn't bother him, truth be told."

So, with two strikes and only one shot left, she'd gone to Gladio.

Now they were sitting across from each other at the hotel she was staying at, and Gladio's face looked pinched.

"Why does it matter?" he asks, and to her ears he sounds oddly defensive. Almost snappish. "Pretty boy doesn't take his shirt off, so what?"

" _So,_ " she stresses, "He complains a lot. I mean  _a lot._ And you're always telling him he should show his 'scrawny muscles'."

"Yeah well," Gladio says. "That's... it's different, Iris."

"How?"

Gladio looks uncomfortable. "Because Noct knows I'm only teasing him. I don't actually expect him to take it off."

"But I mean, if he's uncomfortable--" A thought pings her head. "Is it because he'd feel awkward doing it around you guys or something?"

"No, actually," a tired voice says from the door. "More the opposite."

Ignis walks in, looking like he's gone six rounds with a Behemoth Tyrant and lost. "Our hunt went a little awry, I'm afraid. Noct needs your help."

Gladio's on his feet in an instant, heading for the door. "His back?"

Ignis nods. "Back, and upper thigh. Be cautious. He's still coming down from the rush, and he's a little snappy right now, I'm afraid. The poison isn't helping matters."

They seem to have forgotten about her, and so Iris quietly tags along in the background, worry gnawing at her as she listens to Ignis half-explain the situation to Gladio. When they open the door to his room - there's a tag on the door that says  _do not disturb_ \- the first thing Iris smells is blood. A lot of it.

The second thing she sees is Noctis, face down on the ground, naked as the day he was born. Her face rushes red, thoughts spiraling downward at a rapid pace. It doesn't help that Gladio - her big, muscular brother, picks him up in his arms and carries him over to the bed, and proceeds to straddle his back. 

And then her eyes land on Noctis' back, and all humor in the situation fades immediately. Suddenly, she understands Gladio's stubborn refusal to talk earlier.

Noctis's back, from about mid-way on the left all the way down to the back of his knee, is a twisted mass of scars, atop which new wounds are showing. It's not pretty to look at - it looks almost like something tried to gouge at his spine, but kept missing the mark. And the poison Ignis mentioned she can see in the pus-filled edges of the newest wounds. Whatever came at him came at him  _hard._

Now Gladio lays his hands over the scars, and beneath him, Noctis twitches. 

"Don't," he breathes, and she's horrified to realize he's on the verge of  _tears._ "Gladiolus, please--"

 _Oh fuck,_ she thinks. Noctis never uses her brother's full name unless it's  _personal._

Shit, she shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be seeing this. Unfortunately, Prompto's already got the door locked and closed and the blinds drawn, and is standing guard. That pretty much tells her she's not going to be leaving until this is all over and done.

"I know Noct, I know," Gladio speaks then, in a voice so tender she almost does a double take. "But it's this or we wait it out. If there was a third option, we'd take it, every time." He kisses Noctis' forehead, bright with sweat. He's beginning to look pale, but there's a determined set to Noctis' jaw that speaks of an inability to just roll over and let whatever's happening  _happen._ "Deep breath for me, I'll try to go as quickly as I can."

Noctis is shaking, and none of the three in the room look happy as Gladio reaches for a cart filled to the brim with curatives nearby. Ignis' handiwork, Iris thinks. 

By this point, Noctis has buried his face in the pillows, hands clenched tight. Ignis stands near his head, one hand running though Noctis' hair. Prompto comes to stand near the end of the bed, wrapping a hand around Noctis' ankle and rubbing a thumb up and down the back of it. They're trying to soothe him, provide some measure of comfort to whatever Gladio has to do.

A small jerk of Noctis' head is all the confirmation Gladio gets. He reaches for one of the curatives - an antidote - and breaks it over the festering wounds. She hears the sizzle, and loses all ability to think a second later as Noctis' screams into the pillows. It's muffled, but it still chills her right to the bone. It's a primal sound, the sound of something ready to die, or fixing to die. 

Men aren't supposed to make that noise, she thinks.

Gladio doesn't stop what he's doing. He grimly continues pouring curative after curative over the wounds. They're sluggish to heal, the pus oozing out in a thin line after four more antidotes, after which it takes six potions to finally close the first scar up. 

By the time it's all said and done, Noctis' body is covered in sweat, he's shaking so hard the bed is quivering beneath him, he's as white as the sheets he's laying on, and his screaming as tapered off into a high, breathless noise that speaks of  _too much pain._ Ignis has gone from petting his hair to holding his hands, and Prompto's running hands up and down his calves, trying to distract him. Gladio shifts his weight gingerly off the back of his liege, and through her tears  Iris can see his back, and the wounds on his legs have all closed and set; they're a pinker color against the contrast of the old scars.

Gladio again picks Noctis up, and like a ragdoll he goes. They take him into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Iris hears the lock click, and then the sound of running water.

Quietly, she goes back to her own room.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

She doesn't see them again for five days. She doesn't hear anything from them, either. Both Talcott and Jared try to gain access to the rooms - Jared is allowed in, but Talcott is gently shooed away with a promise that Noctis is fine, just very tired after the hunt. 

"Are they okay?" she asks Jared, when he comes back. He's grim faced, but his eyes are gleaming with a fire she rarely sees anymore.

"No, Miss Iris," Jared says calmly. "They are not." But he doesn't elaborate beyond that, only shakes his head when she tries to figure out if she can help or not.

When she finally sees Gladio, he's sitting in one of the cafes near the front of Lestallum, a root beer in front of him nearly untouched. He's got dark circles under his eyes, a scruff on his chin that speaks of having not shaved recently, and a thousand yard stare that tells her he's not in Lestallum, but likely back wherever Noctis is.

Gingerly, she sits across from him. "Gladdy?"

Gladio doesn't say anything for a time. She thinks maybe he didn't hear her, and goes to touch his arm. His jaw flexes, grinds down, and then he's speaking in a voice that sounds like he's been chewing gravel. "When Noctis was eight, he was attacked by a Maralith. She tore through the muscles on his left leg, and damaged his spine."

Iris freezes up. She knows what Maraliths are - poisonous snake women capable of a lot of damage in the wrong crowd. "What about his guard?"

"Dead before they knew what hit them. None of them were equipped to fight it, so they died. Noctis was left alive, though only barely, and it's because King Regis managed to get there in time. He and our old man were halfway home when they got the notice. Dad told me he's never seen Regis so furious before. Or so scared."

Iris swallows hard. "What...  happened after that?"

Gladio takes in a deep breath. "Noctis entered a coma," he says, voice quieting. "His body... was in bad shape, Iris. Bad shape. A Shield can take that kind of damage and walk away, but Noctis was nearly crippled for it. In some ways, it still bothers him. If we travel too hard on rainy days, or in the heat, his wounds flare up, and he hobbles. His left leg stops working. The amount of times we've had to carry him to a haven for the night are too many, because he's stubborn and doesn't want to be anything less than perfect for everyone."

His hand clenches on the table. "We've told him half a dozen times to slow the fuck down. That we can afford to take a few days here and there, so long as we're still moving at a decent pace. He won't hear of it. Last night, he got pushy. Wanted to hunt even though his leg was acting up. I figured he'd call it off before he and Ignis and Prompto made it. Didn't actually think he'd go through with it. Or that he'd push on despite being so hurt. I should have been there. Should have stopped him." He runs a hand over his face. 

"He doesn't like showing off his scars, huh." She tries for a joke, but it comes out a little flat. Gladio doesn't so much as smile.

"Around us? He doesn't mind. Sometimes they need it, his scars. We usually go towards the deeper havens for it, let him spend a day fishing or something. But other people? No. The few times he had to do it back home, before people were used to it, there were whispers. A lot of them. He complains because the heat hurts. Because we told him to let us know if it gets to be too much. It's when he goes quiet that we know he's hit his pain limits and gone straight into the fog."

"Fog?"

Gladio shakes his head. "Everyone's got their limits. Even those with chronic pain. Noctis... he's bullheaded enough to shove every last one of his aside. We're trying to break him of that, too."

The table falls into silence after that, and Iris digests everything that's been given to her. Remembers the scene of how Gladio had looked pouring the curatives onto Noctis' back as he'd screamed into a pillow that barely muffled it. How in the end he'd cradled Noctis close like he was the most important thing in the world.

"He'll be okay," she hears herself say. "He's strong."

Gladio chuckles, but it's a weak, watery thing. She keeps her eyes on the ground, and pretends him bowing his head is him looking at his phone, and not him hiding the tears that want to come. 

"Yeah," he says at last. "And that's part of the problem too, Iris."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

They leave Lestallum for Caem two days later.

On her way to the car, she catches sight of Noctis. He's upright, although heavily favoring his right side. His left foot is barely touching the ground, and when he walks, it's clear he's using it more as a crutch than an actual leg. A quick touch to the ground and then it's up again. He's wearing a pair of long pants - Gladio's, she realizes, cinched to fit him. Hot shame curls in her belly for a second, and then she dispels it.

No. She saw what she needed to see, and now she understands better. And while she might not be a Shield like her brother, that doesn't mean she can't  _support_ him. That she can't be another pair of hands to keep him steady when he falters. Another voice cautioning him against pushing himself.

She's an Amicitia, after all. They've guarded Kings for generations. 

So when he falls asleep on her in the car, she just leans back and makes him comfortable, catching the quicksilver gleam of approval in Ignis' gaze in the rear view mirror, and feeling Gladio's small smile from beside her. Prompto grins at her when they pull over, and snaps a picture of them cuddled together. 

 _It's going to be okay,_ she thinks at Noctis as they drive off towards the sunset.  _It's all going to be okay._


End file.
